Tempeh

you need more power

I have been back in the USA for 6 days now. I have discovered that many of my friends (except YOU of course) will have to be alienated by me in order for me to sanely and safely move away from here. I don't mean to give up on anyone, it is just that I have found that many people I know care much less about friendship than they might have ever let on.

I love all of you, but we must part ways. I may never see you again, so if we cannot agree finally on these last few days, there will be little chance of any future contact.

I will try to save the world for all of you, although the apathy inherent in the Rapid City lifestyle will be a very difficult factor to overcome. You must strengthen yourself.

23

last will and testament

Two more days until I get on a plane in Frankfurt, and I am furiously calling everyone I can to make arrangements before I go. I will be in the air for just nine hours, but you'd think I'm dying or something.

"I just need to get my affairs in order, before I'm gone."

In the past few months here in Germany, I have gotten used to waiting up until 1 or 2am so I can make phone calls to friends and family back in the US. I have memorised the time differences between here and various American time-zones. I have also gotten used to the flavor of mineral water, and I think I rather like it. I understand why Germans laugh about American beer. I know that "th" in German makes the same sound as "t," so my name is pronounced, "lootee." I have stopped thinking that t-shirts are meant to be worn in public every day. I now have some new shoes, and a sizable new wardrobe, so I don't look like such a putz.

I will be leaving Frankfurt Saturday, at about 2 in the afternoon, and I arrive in Chicago at 4'o'clock the same day, nine hours and 25 minutes later. I will then go to Minneapolis, after being searched orally and anally by customs in Chicago. In Minneapolis I will be picked up by some distant relatives and shipped off to some other distant relatives' house. I spend the night there, and then drive some van that apparently belongs to my parents back to Rapid City, South Dakota, where I live.

I should be in Rapid City sometime late Sunday, or early Monday morning, in case anyone is worried about me. I have a funny feeling that if someone is worried about me, the last thing they would do is look at my website, but whatever.

Yeah, so here I go. Maybe I'll get killed or something. Wouldn't that be a hoot.

If I do die, the Hesses can have anything of mine that they want.
Everything else can be sold, or given away.
If it can't be given away, just take it to the dump, I'm sure they'll take it.

23

sorry folks

I just finished writing about three hours worth of wonder about my trip to Switzerland, had a load of embedded links, and was pretty satisfied with the whole affair. I then made a mistake, and ended up with nothing to show for my efforts. I lost all I had written. It was cohesive, intelligent, and interesting; and I know that I could never recreate the same words. I will show you the links, and hang my head in shame, for I am a stupid, stupid man.

Zürich was an amazing place. It was awe-inspiring. I was inside wonder. I would kill to live there, if even for a month.
Well, I might kill a bat, or a really big moth. I wouldn't kill a person.
I figured you assumed that.
James Joyce lived in Zürich. So did Albert Einstein.

I hope these pictures satisfy, although I don't feel any better about my own error in losing the actual work and the wealth of information I was to impart. I will soon have photos of my own to show, and perhaps I will be more inclined to rewrite my thoughts when I publish them.

23

got to get up

I can hear music comeing from my neighbor's window. It's blaring loudly, and I never expected to hearing bad American rap music coming from the house next door this summer. At the worst, I think I expected Germans to play some Ricky Martin, or maybe Avril Lavigne, but this is just bad rap music. I can't say who is singing, but I know that you could hear it on Mtv, and that it is not good.

I'm going to Switzerland on Wednesday. I spend three days there, in little hotels in small towns in the middle of the Alps. I am going to a city called Thun, to find some distant relatives and try to dig into the history of my family a little more. I will stay the night in Thun, after looking franticly for anyone called Luthy so I can take a photo of some distant cousin. I go from Thun the next morning to a smaller town even higher in the mountains, to look for some other people and more geneology. I will stay the night in the village of Bäretswil, and arise in the morning to board a bus back to Zürich where I will take my train home to Luxembourg. I do not live in Luxembourg, but I save about 50 Euro by taking a train from/to there rather than the town in which I live.

I am Swiss. I know this, and also that I am taking a train to Switzerland in two days. I will try to get some clocks, or some chocolate, and I will see if there is any cheese that I can bring home. I hear that the cheese there is closely guarded. I also hear that one can purchase hashish over the counter in certain stores in the country, but I will have to see for myself. I do not intend to smuggle hashish to or from anywhere, but I have nothing against taking part in local customs.

23

I went to see the Alps once.

They sure are pretty.

I just wish I visited in the winter, so I could snowboard these mountains.

this is not for you

I am worried about my adjustment to dorm life when I get to Antioch. I am concerned about two extremes, and both of them seem silly, but I have seen evidence of both.

My first fear is that the school is populated by poor little rich kids who have the luxury of worrying about whether they will get a BMW or an Aston Martin for their birthday. My second fear is that my dormitory will be over-run by party people from dusk till dawn every night at the week's end. I worry keggers and bongs will distract me from studies. I hope that the reality is somewhere between these two extremes, and that I don't have too much exposure to excesses of collge life. I have had my time to be a drunken college student, and I did a pretty bad job at it.

I worry most often about how I will perform at the school. It is a center for intelligent and informed students to attend and become effective and powerful adults; sometimes I just worry that I don't have what it takes. I hope that if I do not have what it takes to complete an Antioch education, that I die in a plane crash, or drown in a boating accident before I realize it.

It seems to me that I will have to come to terms with the fact that I do not know what the future will hold, and that I can do very little to change what becomes of me. I can only manipulate small details in this life--if I really want to change the world I will need some people to help me. I can't keep mourning an inevitable collision, although I have nothing better than me to protect. I don't protect children, or a way of life, or humanity. I'm all I have right now, all I believe in. I'm trying to find other things, deeper causes, but I don't have any at the moment. Just me.

23